People keep asking why the Doncaster Rovers game wasn't moved to Friday. I link below from their website details of the firework display at the Eco-power stadium on Friday 3rd November 23. As you will notice from the date this has been planned since 6 October 23. https://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk/belles/news/20232/october/big-bang/ That should fully explain why our game was moved.
No it doesn't. Their game could have been moved to Sunday. Sunday to Tuesday is more than the fa/EFL mandated minimum rest period between games. Our game could have been moved to Sunday. The fact that the club are refusing to correct anything said about them says to me everything I need to know
I wonder why the police specifically said that donny were reluctant to change their date but didn't say we were and I wonder why Barnsley have refused to correct that...
The Ladies are part time, probably difficult to accommodate a switch to Friday. Switching the women for the sake of the men's team would probably draw a certain amount of criticism as well.
They could have played both the ladies and men’s game on the Sunday and it would have probably boosted the attendance for the ladies game too. They could also have moved the Donny game to the Sunday and left ours on the Saturday. Or just played our game on the Saturday anyway, as it was hardly going to require a large police presence.
The Horsham team are also part-time, and are being asked to do the same thing with a long road-trip thrown into the mix.
But given that an FA cup game takes precedent over a League game, then it shouldn’t have been a problem to move/ rearrange the ladies game
The Ladies and Men are separate entities from a competitive standpoint so there is no precedence. Postponing a women's game for the benefit of the men just opens the club up to complaints of sexism.
could have played our game with a slightly earlier start and had a double header, get the ladies a bigger crowd
As I recall from years past SYP can only recommend a game be moved. Now they usually force this by saying they will increase policing costs. With us never having had more then 2p to rub together the club just usually folds. Not sure how much they could realistically charge for a game agaisnt Horsham however. I can think of no sensible reason it could not have been played Saturday.
The only way to play both games, would be to have the ladies on the Astro at 9:30, and then the men on the main pitch at maybe 3pm. Both cannot play on same pitch - grass won’t take it with this much water. And you need large gaps in between the games for facility space and security. Always been the same on Saturday mornings too. Got to be done and out by a certain time. The problem then, is that it’s bonfire night. So folk aren’t wanting to be late home either. The police had requested us or Donny tomove (a request is pretty much an instruction - no club is/can ignore it, and neither should they). If Donny have a firework display Friday, with tickets sold, that seems like a good enough reason. So we are where we are.
I think SYP have said in their statement that there wouldn't have been a difference in policing costs, whether the game was played Friday, Saturday or Sunday. And I think someone further clarified that the only way costs increase is if the Police are actually required in the stadium, or something down those lines.